


Give It Time

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Friends With Benefits, M/M, and negotiating such a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22500154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Jack gets into a FWB relationship with someone and doesn’t know how to act around them, especially after sex. They’re indifferent about it, but he’s incredibly awkward.+ for Jack being really clingy and annoying++ if everyone else knows about it because of Jack stressing out about being so awkward"Aw, I didn’t want to make any clinginess on Jack’s part seem annoying. He’s been alone for 300 years! But then again, to someone like Sandy, that doesn’t seem that long. And they certainly don’t know each other well enough to be more than friends, no matter what else they do. Pitch appears to offer some advice and be an asshole.
Relationships: Jack Frost/Sanderson Mansnoozie
Kudos: 8
Collections: Cold Gold Short Fics





	Give It Time

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 9/28/2015.

“So, that was—I mean, wow, and—”  
  
Sandy pats Jack’s face as he wiggles out of his arms. With a shrug, he re-forms his clothes, then hands Jack his own, where they’ve luckily stayed on the dreamsand cloud even though neither Jack nor Sandy had been paying attention to them for some time.  
  
Jack frowns and looks at the pile of clothes in his hands. He doesn’t really want to put them on right away, but Sandy’s already dressed, and maybe it is a little cold up here now that he’s not sandwiched between Sandy and the cloud, but he kind of wants—  
  
He glances up at Sandy to find him smiling, and, if he reads the symbols right, jokingly asking Jack if he plans to go and be the Guardian of Fun dressed as he is.  
  
“Oh no!” Jack says. “No way. I just thought, I mean, I know you explained that this isn’t a romantic-type relationship, but, um, couldn’t cuddling be part of, you know, the benefits part of friends with benefits?”  
  
Sandy looks thoughtful. That makes sense, he tells Jack after a nerve-wracking pause. But, he goes on, right now isn’t good for that. He needs to get back to weaving dreams—he’d had so much fun he stopped entirely for a while. Anyway, maybe next time. He smiles sunnily. He very much did want there to be a next time.  
  
“Yeah—me too,” Jack says. He starts putting on his clothes because he can’t think of anything else to say about how much he wants to stay without sounding like he hasn’t understood their arrangement. But maybe that’s true! He hopes his smile doesn’t seem forced, but he hasn’t had to fake any expressions in so long, so that hope is probably going unfulfilled.  
  
He doesn’t look at Sandy for long when he leaves the cloud with a wave, returned very cheerfully by Sandy, and as the strands of dreamsand quickly fill the sky, he smacks himself in the forehead with his palm. “What was I thinking?” he mutters to himself. His memory returns a ready answer. He had been thinking that Sandy was just so cute and wonderful, and that his longing was likely going to become a problem, when the ancient Guardian had approached him and asked if he wanted to meet up and have sex sometimes, as more like friends than lovers. Jack had been thinking that the offer wasn’t likely to get better than that. He had been thinking that whatever affection and attention Sandy gave him would be so much more than he was used to that he wouldn’t even think of wanting more.  
  
He had been thinking that by the time he fell in love with Sandy that…well…that more time would have passed.  
  
Jack thinks he maybe just isn’t very good at thinking.  
  
And now what? Sandy clearly doesn’t need him the way Jack needs Sandy, and if he’s honest with Sandy, Sandy will probably tell him that they should break off their arrangement since it isn’t working out the way it’s supposed to. Jack feels his muscles tighten with anxiety. No, no, he needs more, not less, and surely he can figure out how to hide that for the sake of what he does have. But for how long? Forever? That’s a long time and he’s going to mess it up at some point and then what? Then it’ll be even worse because he’ll have been lying to Sandy for so long…  
  
He realizes vaguely that he’s flying closer and closer to the tops of some trees, and that he should pull up, but he doesn’t feel like there’s any lift in him now, and he might as well land, even, feeling how he feels.  
  
When he does, however, there’s no peace, because Pitch steps out from a shadow and begins haranguing him. “Do you have any idea of how distracting you are?” Pitch asks. “Probably not, but I don’t care. You’re quite powerful now, and you know what that means? It means that I can’t feed on your fear, but your incipient panic attack is blotting out everything else I’m trying to find, and that means that I’ll have to start deliberately scaring people instead of just finding those who are already afraid, and while that’s more fun it just brings the Guardians around, and I don’t want to deal with that this evening and—” He breaks off and stares intently at Jack. “There’s dreamsand in your hair. Now _what exactly_ were you ready to panic about?”  
  
Jack assumes Pitch got his answer when he scowls and starts to pace back and forth, muttering unintelligibly to himself. It’s inexplicable enough that it actually calms Jack somewhat, and he watches Pitch with puzzlement. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I hope it’s not one of those plots where you kidnap someone to get to their…friends, because that probably wouldn’t be a good idea.”  
  
Pitch startles and stops pacing. “I know that! I simply was weighing the advantages of certain courses against my personal dislike of them.” He folds his arms. “And I think your fears are actually going to be my main problem until they decrease. So.” His scowl settles even more firmly on his face. “You just have to give Sandy time. Sandy really likes…that is, the Sandman is a sexual being and he is not inclined to shy away from willing partners. But he doesn’t think of you as a lover and would not say that he is in love with you because he certainly doesn’t think he’s known you for long enough yet. That’s all.”  
  
 _How do you know this?_ Jack wants to ask, because Pitch only lies to increase people’s fears, but there’s a more important question he has to ask first. “How long is long enough?”  
  
Pitch laughs nastily. “Oh, Jack. Just a few thousand years or so. Have fun,” he says, and before Jack can do or say anything else, he’s disappeared.  
  
“I haven’t even known myself for that long,” Jack says to no one. He runs his hand through his hair and it comes out glittering with dreamsand. “I don’t know if I’ll even stay the same person? What if I really change? What if I don’t change for the better? What if I…huh.” He shrugs. “Well, I suppose I won’t get _that_ bad.”  
  
And returning to the sky is much easier than he thought it would be.

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> #yes past blacksand is meant to be implied#probably future too#maybe future winternights!#much awkwardness will be had 
> 
> bowlingforgerbils said: I think this is the first fic where I’ve been a little pissed at Sandy, haha! Not the best at communicating sometimes…


End file.
